Meet Lucia Tringali

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lucia Tringali. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lucia below.

Hi Lucia, so happy to have you on the platform with us today and excited to chat about your lessons and insights. Our ability to make good decisions can massively impact our lives, careers and relationships and so it would be very helpful to hear about how you built your decision-making skills.

Ever since I was a child, my mother always told me: ” You are free to make whatever choice you want, just make sure you can live with any of the potential outcomes.” I’ve applied this advice to every decision ever since!

When it came to opening my businesses, this thought process was my saving grace.

Day 1: What can happen if I open a business?

Potential outcomes:
A. It becomes a wild success and I’m swimming in money.
B. Its lukewarm and hard.
C. It fails and I lose my money invested.

Could I live with any of these options coming true, yes…with the caveat of only investing an amount of money I’m willling to lose. So what did I do? Of course I opened my businesses and the reality is the outcome is a mix of all 3. Some months I’m sitting there panicked, others I feel like I’m the next up coming big wig! But do I regret my decision? Absolutely not! I ran it through the “can I live with the consequences” test and it passed. Plus, there’s just such an adventure in saying YES!

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

By day I work as a Documenatation Manager/Technical Writer. During all my time outside of my 9-5, I work on growing my businesses: THE|BAR Pole Studio and Apolethecary – body care for pole dancers, both of which are just around 2 years old.

The decision to become a business owner quite literally happened overnight. I was teaching as a pole instructor at my home studio when the owner announced it was moving. When students expressed they couldn’t commute to the new location, my former studio owner asked me if I would want to open my own studio in the spot she was vacating. I remember leaning over to my now husband and asking “Can you take down and put up walls?”, “Yes.” he said and in turn I immediately typed “YES!” to the question. Within 48 hours I had an LLC. Boom! I owned a business!

Oddly enough, Apolethecary was inspired by an idea and something I toyed with on the side about 6 months prior to opening THE|BAR. Once I launched THE|BAR, then I got super serious about creating Apolethecary as THE|BAR’s house brand of body care products that help soothe and heal your skin and body without compromising your ability to stick to the pole.

In these 2 years, I have learned so much about what being a business owner actually means. I am a bookkeeper, an accountant, a social media manager, a marketing dept, a content creator, an instructor, a plumber, a maid, and so much more! – And as a Gemini with a Leo rising, I have the confidence to say yes but I struggle with how many things to say yes to. #cuetheplatebalancingact

This leads me to my next point – Community. Since I launched and opened 30 days after deciding to embark on this journey, I relied heavily on my peers and students to help me iterate, create, and excite. When I have a new idea or direction, I poll my staff and students. After all, my decisions affect them the most. Together we have evolved THE|BAR into a space that feels like it is a part of everyone, because it is. Everyone has some little piece that speaks to them and is them and for that I will never not take suggestions and feedback from my community. I can truly say that together we have added a third place back into people’s routine, and that we’ve created a space where people want to hang out and chat before or after classes in one of our many seating areas.

To futher support our community, we often donate portions of event sales and raffles to local organizations like the Blackstone Valley Animal Shelter, or even to The Trevor Project and places like Just the Pill. This year, we’ve signed up to participate in the Providence Pride Parade, to showcase who we are and what we stand for!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Looking back I think the top three qualities and skills that provided the most impact were: adaptability, humility, and the art of taking a deep breathe closing your eyes and saying “Ok, let’s do this” (as Dory would say, “just keep swimming”)

Adaptability allowed me to pivot and make changes on the fly. Throw out your business plan as it creates a sense of being ‘locked in’ to how it should be. Just like life, your plans are no plans. Take it one step at a time and pivot at the drop of hat when needed. First think of the tone, values, and mission of your business and hold those true but allow the pieces that make them up to be ever changing and evolving. Allow and welcome feedback even when you don’t want to hear it. These hard to swallow pills are what keep you innovating and getting better and better. From my time on the Blox, Wes Bergmann taught me about something called the minimally viable product (MVP). It means don’t delay launching for more time to create the end goal perfect product. Launch as soon as you have one feature. For example, I was launching a pole studio. I needed a booking app. I launched with a booking app where I could schedule classes and students can sign up. Now, the app includes in app membership sales, a dedicated private social media feed, an event calendar etc. All of these came through interations and over the course of these 2 years and were not part of day 1.

Humility keeps you personable to your customers. It lets them know you that aren’t a robot, that you are a real human just like them. It allows them to feel comfortable providing feedback and also encourages them to do so, as they are more likely to feel heard. Humility also means putting your ego aside and changing something even when you have to admit to yourself your idea just wasn’t ‘it’. Remember that even though your product/business is YOUR baby, in all reality it is a servant to the public and they determine what it becomes and needs.

The art of taking a deep breathe and saying “Ok, let’s do this” will get you a hell of a lot further than slowing down and pausing. You have to operate with the mentality that you are already successful and these choices will become easier. Stalling means you’ll get more time to talk yourself out of it, second guess yourself, or miss the oppurtunity to execute. Run the decision through the “can I live with any of these consequences coming true” test and then if it passes take a deep breathe and DO IT!

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

When you’re overwhelmed, your best friend is going to be productive apps, AI, and your planner.

I personally use Motion as my productive app. You can quite literallly spit out your task list, the time each task will take, the task’s dealine, sync your personal and work calender, and let AI do the rest. This tool looks at your schedule against the time and deadline of each task and assigns them to your calendar automatically. You can define your working hours to ensure you’re not booked 24/7, but beyond that this tool becomes a daily to do list that ensures you accomplish your goals on the timelines you set.

In addition to this, I also use a manual handwritten planner. This is mostly for tasks I’d like to accomplish on a specific date but aren’t urgent, and for personal tasks like laundry day or fix the doorbell camera. Similarily to the sense of accomplishment Motion provides for my business tasks and goals, this gives me the same satisfaction for my personal tasks. The combination of the two mean that no matter how wild my never-ending task list is, I still end my day on the positive knowing I DID make progress across the board!

I know lists aren’t for everyone, and some can even say they themselves add to your task list; however, having a full end-to-end roadmap of my day helps me keep momentum knowing there is a defined end to the day and a sense of accomplishment each time I complete something.

Beyond this, leverage AI! Need a blog post idea: AI. Need a month’s worth of content creation ideas: AI. Need a second set of ‘eyes’ to help decipher your brand and tone: AI. Not only will this save you time but it can help inspire you to think differently about what you’re doing and help you smooth out your ideas and operations.

Lastly, when I am feeling overwhelmed the most important thing to prioritize is self care. I like to silence the noise by practicing yoga, reading books, and bubble bath meditations. I cannot stress caring for yourself first when you feel a block or burnout coming on. As the saying goes “you cannot pour from an empty cup”. If you’re overwhelmed now, how worse will it be when you physically and mentally just can’t because that’s what will end up happening.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.the-bar.co and www.the-bar.com/aboutapolethecary
• Instagram: @thebar.studio and @apolethecary
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebar.studioma/ and https://www.facebook.com/Apolethecary
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucia-tringali/
• Other: Tiktok: @thebar.studio and @apolethecary

Image Credits

Kelleyanne Bujold Photography